Of Lives Unlived and Stories Untold
by The-Despondent-Insomniac
Summary: A year has gone by and nothing is as it once was. But a lot can happen in a year: a kingdom can be stolen, a Queen can be broken...a child born. Will their return to a world that has forgotten them change anything or will the gentle queen be lost forever?
1. Chapter 1: The Return

**Don't own it, not mine blah blah blah lol. Pairing is PETER/SUSAN...this means incest, so if you don't like it, don't read. Simple as really :)**

**So please, read, enjoy...and review :)...if I get enough positive feedback, I'll post the next chapter on christmas day...if not, well what's one more incomplete story? lol**

**xoxox**

**Becca**

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Chapter one: The Return.

Her hand draped softly across her lower stomach as she flipped onto her back beside the dying fire, Lucy's shocked question ringing loudly in her ears in the otherwise silent clearing.

"But you're happy to be here aren't you?" a question with only one answer in Lucy's mind. The answer Susan couldn't bring herself to give. Glancing quickly over at Peter and sighing softly, she returned her focus to her now ill-fitting wedding ring and felt the weight of it as it slid slowly over her flat stomach. She sighed again, fighting a sob and pressed her palm gently into the taut muscles hidden beneath the corset of her gown.

"While it lasts." she whispered brokenly to her incredulous sister, as she rolled fully over onto her other side and clamped her eyes closed- forcing the tears building beneath them to remain glued beneath the lids. Nothing in Narnia lasted forever; she knew that better than most.

Peter had slipped his hand into hers earlier that day, as they were leaving the gorge where Lucy claimed to have seen Aslan. It was the first time he had voluntarily touched her in months, and it stung that he should have done so now. Where had he been all those months in London when she needed him the most, where was he when she was screaming, and crying at her mother to have mercy. Where was he when she needed his comfort, the safety of his arms around her and the warmth of his embrace? Why only now did he choose to offer her his touch. She knew it was partly her fault, she had pushed him away after... pushed them _all_ away from her and surrounded herself only in memories and past dreams, and nightmares. But still, he should have fought for her, should have fought her nails and her screaming protests, fought her shrieking profanities and her wailing sobs. Why only now did he offer his comfort again- now when they were back in the place it had all started. Where it had all ended and where her heart had shattered?

She woke in the morning with her fingers clutching the bodice of her gown, a nightmare still lingering in her mind and tears leaving darkened streaks along her cheekbones as they dripped silently into the grass below her. Peter was dousing the remains of the fire and she could tell from his own sober, glassy-eyed glance that he knew what she had been dreaming of. She could only pray Lucy and Edmund hadn't heard her sleeping cries. Having Peter give her such a tired, pitying look was bad enough; she couldn't stand it from them as well.

They finished packing up camp silently, letting Edmund and Lucy sleep as they did so; Trumpkin was nowhere to be found but they weren't worried, he would show up when they were ready to leave. Susan refused to look at Peter as they separated the supplies out, moving the heavier items into their own packs and leaving their younger siblings with the lighter ones. They both reached towards the slowly shrinking pile, fingers brushing and tangling as they attempted to grasp the same lamp. Their eyes met and Susan gasped painfully as she tried to wrench her hand away, but just as her hand slipped free, Peter tugged it back; forcefully pulling her towards him and refusing to break eye-contact even as she tried to wriggle away. A single sob tore from her throat at the feeling of his hands once more touching her after so long without him. It was unbearable. His movements gentled at the sound of her pain and his face softened as he continued to stare at her. Unable to hide her tears anymore, Susan let them pour freely down her cheeks- her sobs echoed through the small forest clearing, leaving only ringing silence behind as they slowly faded.

Unable to fight anymore and with no strength left to pull away, Susan let herself collapse into Peter's arms. With her face buried deep in his neck and his achingly familiar scent surrounding her, Susan finally gave into the pain and let loose the raging agony that had been burning inside of her for the past five months. With one hand gripping his tunic like a lifeline and the other clutching her deceitfully flat stomach, Susan let her husband hold her like she hadn't in almost a year- letting the tears and the rage, and the pain and betrayal all flow from her soul- until finally, all that was left was a feeling of emptiness and a vague sense of comforted numbness.

Slowly pulling away from the safety of Peter's embrace- despite his protests, Susan prayed that her brother and sister were at least feigning sleep; she didn't think she could handle their questions and sympathy just then. Tiredly, she brushed the lingering tears from her cheeks and gave Peter a non-committal stare as she stood up and tried to ignore the tears dripping slowly from his eyes as well. Instead, she focussed on smoothing out her gown carefully. It was with precise, even movements that she finished preparing her bag and gathered her bow. Slinging the quiver carefully onto her back she walked calmly over to her younger siblings and gently shook them awake. If they had heard her breakdown only moments before, they didn't show it, didn't comment on it. Only sat up silently and gathered their things together- not seeming to notice, nor question the lightness of their packs as they gathered them from the rough ground at the fireside.

Just as they finished packing up camp, the DLF made an appearance- accompanied by a tiny talking rat and a wildly majestic looking centaur.


	2. Interlude 1: Out Of The Wardrobe

**Okay, so just to clear a few things up; this story is MAJORLY AU. It goes on the assumption that Peter and Susan were together in Narnia during their previous reign. As of the fireside scene in the 2nd movie- there this fic starts- it is completely off canon. That means, NO Suspian!!!...I personally cannot stand the pairing, but that's just me. But yeah... So this fic contains incest, very creative liscense on my part and a lil bit of a twisted mind lol.**

**SO! I hope you all enjoy. Please feel very very free to review, any feedback at all is most welcome. Especially on my writing style, punctuation ect...**

**As usual, dont own it yada yada yada :)**

**xoxox**

**Becca**

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Interlude one: Out Of The Wardrobe.

_Susan tumbled heavily from the giant wardrobe, her desperate calls for her siblings to turn back, to please, please not go any further dying on her lips as she caught sight of her husband. He was young. His hair was short, not the shoulder length glistening waves that she loved to run her fingers through slowly at night, his clothes were patched and worn looking beneath the ridiculously large fur coat adorning his small frame. His broad, steady shoulders were shrunken and weak looking as they hunched beneath the weight of the coat. His face was smooth and unlined, no stubble graced his cheeks and the beard he had been so religiously growing was nowhere to be seen. Her husband was a boy again and she, what was she?..._

_She walked slowly around the somehow familiar room, taking in the dust covered tables and the cloth covered chairs until finally she found what she was looking for. Pulling the billowing sheet smoothly from the tall looking glass, High Queen Susan of Narnia looked for the first time in seventeen years upon the face of her fifteen year old self. _

_Her breath caught in her throat as her mind swam with images of their home, what would the court say when they discovered their Queen had reverted into a child. How was Peter to fight with the body of a boy, their enemies expected a battle hardened warrior on the battlefield, not a small child playing dress up. How was their kingdom to survive when it was heard that the Narnian throne once again had four children sitting upon it. _

_Children...._

_Susan frantically lowered her hands to her stomach, her figure hidden beneath the layers of hard wearing clothing and her own perfectly ridiculous fur coat. She breathed a sigh of relief at the familiar feeling of a small rise at the base of her stomach. Her body was changed, but her child was safe, that was all that mattered. _

_Looking around the room again, Susan was once more hit by a feeling of familiarity. But surely she had never been here before, she would remember a house like this one, hidden in such a strange place: next to a hanging lantern in the depths of the Narnian forest. A house with the power to make one look like their childhood selves no less. Perhaps a witch's house? Perhaps a dryad's._

_She glanced over at her child-husband and smiled at him questioningly, surely he had some idea, perhaps it was a joke- played on them by Edmund and Lucy. Their two siblings were nowhere to be found in the forgotten looking room- confirming Susan's suspicions of a prank. Peter's face was blank though, he didn't look as though he was finding it funny. He looked worried. And scared. Susan began to tremble slightly as she moved swiftly to his side and grasped his hand in her own. Her voice shook as she quietly asked_

"_Peter my love, what is going on? Do you know?"_

_Before he could answer, the slightly ajar door to the room- a different one than they had come through Susan noted- burst open and her children siblings raced through it. Lucy's screams of "we're back Su, we're back Peter. We're back!" bounced harshly off the walls and resonated in Susan's head over and over. With every hateful repetition of the words through her mind, her panic only increased as her nails dug compulsively into Peter's hand. Finally, just as she felt her mind was about to tear itself to pieces, she sank to the floor in a dead faint- her hand still clutching Peter's and his frantic shouts of her name being the last thing she heard as the darkness swallowed her whole. _


	3. Chapter 2: Prince Caspian

**So i just wanted to say thank you, to my one reviewer so far :) and to the few people who have put an alert out for this story. I'm not expecting much feedback on this one since i know the category (unfortunately) isn't all that popular. To those who do review however, thank you so so much. This story is for all of you. I hope you all enjoy it :D**

**xoxox**

**Becca**

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Chapter Two: Prince Caspian.

He was a boy. Susan's heart sank in disappointment at the sight of the wannabe king before her. She didn't have time for boys, especially not ones who wanted to be king but could barely even handle a sword. He was barely older than Peter for Aslan's sake. And a Telmarine! Since when did those barbarians have any right to **her** throne? It wasn't Narnian; Narnia would never suffer a foreign king, especially not one so weak as this: a mere throwback from the ancient Calormenes. They chose their rulers from amongst their own. Not from the savages who had taken over the land and tried to possess it. Had Narnia truly fallen so far since their departure?

It was with a feeling of distain that Susan pushed her way from the makeshift campsite the new arrivals had set up as she fled into the woods surrounding them. They had intended to go and find Narnia's only hope, preparing to walk the length and breadth of Narnia if they had to, to put the rightful king on their old throne. They didn't even have to leave the campsite. Trumpkin had spent the night in the forest, seeking out others of his kind and passing messages of their location by way of Reepcheep's (the tiny rat) talking cousins. By the time dawn broke, the entire populace of true Narnians knew of their return, and their current position.

Glenstorm (the centaur and a direct descendant of general Orius) and Reepcheep were the first to arrive at the camp, Caspian's ambassadors as it were. Lucy had happily received them, gushing over the cuteness of the little creature and curtseying respectfully to the centaur. Susan was glad she hadn't lost _all_ of her Narnian upbringing at least. She truly didn't understand how Lucy wasn't more affected by the constant changes as she herself was. Her little sister seemed to jump between the worlds as carefree as a water sprite between rivers and lakes. She didn't seem to understand how wrong it was that on a whim they could be ripped from their lives and thrown across universes. She danced between them and slipped into the two roles as though it was a normal, everyday occurrence. Sometimes Susan despaired of her, and sometimes she envied her. Oh, to be as carefree as Lucy, so whimsical and ridiculously charming that no one could ever be angry at her. Even when she forgot herself entirely and claimed a knight was Narnia was "soooo cute!" showing that despite their lives in Narnia and growing up as royalty; the English child in her still remained. Susan truly didn't understand how she did it sometimes, but she had put it to the back of her mind as she stepped forward to greet their guests, forcing a welcoming and diplomatic smile onto her face as she did so.

Now though, she couldn't handle anymore. She needed to get away, needed to _breathe_. It was too much, far, far too much to handle in one day. She was barely holding onto her sanity just from being back in the country where she had spent the best days of her life, where every step she took across Narnian soil awoke another memory of their old life: their coronation, their wedding day, the day the physician told her she was pregnant with Narnia's heir, Peter's amazement and her own delirious joy at the news...

Having all of Narnia's creatures around her again, the creatures she used to call friends, the creatures she had imagined her baby growing up around and playing with. It was all too much. And then, to have that _child_ Caspian, claim to be the rightful king! It was laughable: painfully, hysterically, laughable. No one belonged on the Narnian throne but a Narnian. Her child should have been the next ruler of her once beloved country, and their children's children after that. The Narnian throne was never meant to sit empty; not when the rightful heir could so easily have been placed upon it. A _Telmarine_ was never supposed to rule Narnia, especially not that Telmarine.

As she raced further and further into the forest, Susan could hear the wind howling in her ears as it swept through the trees. To her it sounded like the shriek of a newborn being ripped from its mother's arms. Her frantic pace was abruptly cut as she crumpled to her knees beside a small pool of water. The force of her sobs shook her entire body as memories assaulted her. The wind still sounded in her ears and with every shriek, her sobs increased until she could barely stay upright; curling into herself instead and clutching her now empty womb as she rocked backwards and forwards at the pools edge.

As her tears continued to fall thick and fast, one of the small glistening drops hit the pool beside her with a quiet splash. The pool rippled once before the surface shimmered and a woman's face appeared: ridges of pale green scales rose along her cheekbones and brow; her lips were thin and chapped, tinged almost blue with the cold of the water. Her hair flowed around her head, snarled and wild; strands of kelp were threaded through it- making her look fierce and cruel. But her eyes were kind- a deep, depthless violet as they looked with pity upon the broken Queen sitting weeping at her poolside.


	4. Interlude 2: Realisation

_**Interlude Two: Realisation.**_

_The feeling of familiar feather pillows underneath her head was heavenly as Susan let out a sigh of relief. She had imagined it all. She must have had another fainting spell, or been delirious. The physician had warned her that pregnancy would do that to her. But it was over now, and she was safe in her own bed, happily ensconced within the mighty walls of Cair Paravel. It was all a dream. Smiling happily, and rubbing her slowly growing bump affectionately, Susan stretched languorously and slowly opened her eyes. A content smile played softy across her lips as she met the worried eyes of her husband, hovering nervously above her, the rest of his face was blurry due to his proximity, but she would recognise his eyes anywhere. He drew back a little as she struggled to sit up; her strength drained by her impromptu faint and his face came into view- young and innocent and so utterly alien to her that she nearly screamed, her nightmare was reality. They were back in the place that has haunted her dreams for years after their arrival in Narnia. That place filled with loud, destructive metal that screamed throughout the night and left houses in ruins and orphans wandering the streets. They had entered her nightmares. They had returned to England. _

_Her stomach tightened with dread at the realisation and the urge to vomit became unbearable. It couldn't be happening, it couldn't. She was Narnian, not English. England was a place of her nightmares- a horror-land dreamt up by her childhood imagination, nothing more. It couldn't be real, they couldn't be back. _

_The face of an elderly man suddenly appeared, peeking cautiously around the doorway of the strange bedroom as she struggled to sit up- her hand massaging her growing stomach in an effort to reassure herself that she wasn't going mad. The old man walked slowly into the room, eyeing both her and her child-husband with slight wariness in his eyes- making her wonder what Peter had done during her absence from consciousness. As he came closer to the bed, she closed her eyes tightly and took a deep breath; struggling to keep the hysteria she could feel bubbling inside her from erupting. The old man was __**walking**__. On two legs. Just like them. He was human. It had been so long since she met another human, all of her Narnian subjects were of a different species and race. The closest she had come to meeting another in all her years as Queen, was the Calormenes. She wasn't even sure they could be counted as human- so barbaric and cruel. Rumour claimed they had descended from the ruthless, power hungry god Tash himself. Seeing another __**true **__human, after all the years of being thought the only ones was too much to bear. With a weak cry and grasping tightly to Peter's hand- desperately seeking whatever comfort this boy-man her husband had been reduced to could offer, Susan buried her face into the pillows of the unfamiliar bed and wept. _


	5. Chapter 3: The Face In The Pool

**Chapter Three: The Face in The Pool.**

Susan drew in a deep breath as she attempted to reign in her sobs; it wouldn't do for anyone to find her in such a position. It wasn't proper to be seen as such. Wiping the tears shakily from her cheeks, Susan leaned over to splash some of the pool water onto her face and immediately pulled back- only just managing to stifle the scream building in her throat. Slowly inching forwards again, Susan could barely believe her eyes: the face stared placidly back at her from the depths of the pool, its scales rippling gently in the impossible current and its hair flowing freely around its head. A mer-witch.

A small, frighteningly benign smile filled the scaled and wrinkled face that floated beneath the surface making Susan both cringe in fear and relax in relief. In her time ruling Narnia, she had never once come across a mer-witch. She had heard of them; great tales of both wickedness and wonder- spoken with reverence by all those who uttered them. But never once had one presented itself to her. She didn't know whether to be terrified or hopeful, a mer-witch, from what she had heard were as unpredictable and ever-changing as the waters they lived in. It was almost unheard of for one to simply show itself for no reason.

The witch, sensing her fear and questions simply smiled wider; exposing rows of sharp, jagged little teeth that poked almost menacingly from beneath the pale and chapped lips as she drew them back slowly in an unusually compassionate attempt to placate the fragile queen. A single ice-white hand slowly emerged from beneath the water- reaching out, showing long, scaled nails as it moved noiselessly through the water towards the bank. It stopped, just short of touching Susan's own and hovered tantalisingly above the water's edge; waiting for the permission it sought to take the once mighty queen's hand in its own.

Susan shrank back in fear as the hand came closer and closer towards her, breaking the surface of the pool and reaching for her own. She stared fearfully at it for several moments before reaching out cautiously and touching her fingers to that of those waiting for her at the water's edge. The second her fingers touched that of the mer-witch, the scaled hand tightened almost painfully around her own; the nails pressing half crescents into her palms and the rough palms grating harshly against her soft skin.

Susan stared down, terrified into the water of the pool as the witch slowly emerged; the water slipped down her body and back into the pool around her like silk, leaving her dry as she raised herself higher and higher from the water depths. Susan's eyes met hers as she slowly ascended until they were eye to eye. Only then did she speak. Her voice was harsh. unused to being used above water, it came out cracked, yet ringing; high and clear- like a bell being struck or water as it sang in a glassmaking . Susan flinched slightly as she heard it. It wasn't until she heard the words being spoken that she drew completely still and locked eyes with the mythical creature before her.

"The queen Susan comes. The gentle and the beloved, the broken and the lost. Narnia's most rejoiced has returned. Narnia's most worthy visits my pool. The poor queen Susan weeps for what she had lost, she weeps for that which was taken. The exulted has been wronged, her country has been poisoned. The rightful queen Susan has come to ask me something, come to beg of me something. Something I cannot give. The mother-queen shall have a gift. A fleeting gift, one of pain and sorrow, one of heartache but relief, one of hope- but not of joy. Does the mother-queen accept?"

Almost without realising it, Susan slowly nodded her head- a blank, trance like look filled her face even as new tears slipped from her eyes and landed one by one in the pool. The witch was offering her a gift, one involving her child she was sure. That was all she needed to know. Reaching out her hand, the mer-witch pulled Susan slowly towards her, cupping her face as she did so and blowing gently into her eyes. Susan's eyes slipped closed, the mer-witch's hand tightened and slipped around to the back of her neck, her deep violet eyes darkened to black, and as Susan's final tear fell quietly into the pond- the water shimmered. A ripple crossed the surface, first one, and then another until the pool was frothing and writhing. A light began to glow, emanating from deep within the pool, becoming brighter and brighter until finally it burst through the surface- glowing above Susan for a moment until it sank slowly back into the pool, calming the waves and stilling the surface as it did so.

When the waves finally settled, a milky colour tinged them all, spreading throughout the whole pool and turning the surface into a pearly mirror. A picture began to slowly take shape on the surface, and just as Susan's eyes began to focus on it and widen in shock at the scene that filled it, the mer witch thrust her forward, using her grip on the back of her neck to force her head through the pearlescent image and deep below the water surface- submerging her completely and ignoring her struggles until finally Susan went limp in her arms.


	6. Interlude 3: Mistakes Can Be Deadly

**hey guys, just wanted to say thank you for the support ive been getting for this fic, i know that this section is not all that popular anymore so the reviews and favs ive been getting are all the more appreciated :) ....heres the next chapter, i hope you all enjoy it and will let me know if ive made any major...or minor...plot errors. obviosly this fic is pretty AU, but i hope ive got all the characters and such names right :)...if not, please correct me. constructive crit is always useful :D .....other reviews are of course very much loved as well lol....what can i say, im human. i like being told im good hahaha**

**xoxox**

**Becca**

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Interlude Three: Mistakes Can Be Deadly.

_Three days they had been trapped in this world, three days of misery and torture and long forgotten memories rearing their malicious little heads. The professor had been kind enough she supposed, he tried to humour her as she sobbed out tales of home into Peter's arms, he tried to tell her of his own visits there. She didn't believe him of course. No one who had truly belonged to Narnia could talk of leaving it and moving on with such calm acceptance. She knew she never would be able to. Her one source of comfort was Peter; her husband-brother. Only in his arms did she feel like she was still at home, instead of this god awful place called England. She had spent the last two nights alternately crying and sleeping and desperately reaching for the small bump of her stomach to check that that at least, had not disappeared as well as her home. _

_Lucy and Edmund had begun to act strangely almost the second they had stumbled back into the wardrobe-room; squealing excitedly like the children they resembled and dancing noisily around Susan's bed whenever Peter allowed them into the room. She worried they truly believed this was their home- forgetting already their real lives in favour of this dull, drab existence of dreary clothes and nightly shrieking, as overhead disgusting machines flew past-dropping explosives on nearby towns and cities. This wasn't home, this was hell. _

_By the fourth day she was terrified, Peter hadn't been in her room when she woke up and when he had entered, it was only to look at her silently- his face unreadable- before walking slowly back out again, his brow furrowed and his eyes troubled. Lucy had bounded in sometime during the early afternoon; Susan, had been sitting at the window- staring out over the unfamiliar land of rolling fields and small, winding paths- when she danced her way through the doorway and flung herself gracelessly into her sister's lap. Susan gasped as her sister threw herself around her midsection, sharply hitting the slowly swelling bump there as she wailed out complaints of Edmund being horrid. Susan had pushed her off, horrified as she felt the pain from the blow echo throughout her body. Mere moments later, as Lucy continued to moan and wail, she began to scream; a shrieking, agony filled sound of sheer terror. Her stomach felt as though it was being ripped in two; splitting and tearing from the inside out. _

_Lucy's own shrieks were drowned out and quickly silenced by the blood curdling screams being forced from her sister's throat. Terrified, she stumbled from the bed where Susan lay writing in agony, clutching her stomach and raced to find peter. _


	7. Chapter 4: False Reality

**Chapter Four: False Reality.**

She couldn't breathe, she couldn't move, she couldn't scream anymore. Everything was going dark, blurring around the edges. She knew she should move, writhe and scream and try to escape the pull of the witch. But she couldn't. She was too tired to fight anymore. What was the point? Better instead to simply let go and float away forever. And if she was going to die, she was at least glad it was on Narnian soil...she just wished her baby could have seen it: just once, just for a minute. Her final thought before everything went dark was _I wish I could see his face again, just once more..._

Susan awoke to the sound of screaming. Her face was pressed onto a rough stone floor of what looked to be an English kitchen and she could faintly feel the beginnings of a migraine but the only thing she could focus on was the sound of the child's screaming. She had to do something, had to help, a baby needed her. The screaming abruptly cut off seconds after she managed to pull herself shakily to her feet; only to start up again seconds later, louder and high pitched. Stumbling towards the source of the noise, Susan paid little attention to the spinning of her head or the tremors she could feel wracking her whole body. One hand pressed into her stomach and the other holding her steady against the sooty walls surrounding her, she thought only of finding the baby she could still hear crying.

Other sounds accompanied it now: the wails of at least two other children, the angry voices of rough sounding women, the barking of a dog. But through it all, she could still pick out that one specific cry, that one specific child; drawing her towards it with ever growing fervour.

She thought nothing of the fact she was definitely back in England, didn't stop to wonder how she would ever get back to peter in Narnia and didn't once consider how it would look if she was to be caught wandering around a strangers house. The only thing she could think of was getting to the child. She had to get to it, it needed her. She couldn't leave it to suffer. Not after... she just wouldn't do it. Not to another child.

The noise of the crying began to become louder and louder as she forced herself to walk along the winding corridors of the darkened house. Through grimy windows set high in the cold, bare stone walls she could faintly see the sun attempting to penetrate the gloomy house only to be rebuffed by the twisting creepers that covered the majority of the pane. Simple, unadorned gas lanterns helped her to light her way as she stumbled searchingly along the halls, following only the sounds of the crying. As she finally reached a half open doorway, through which the wailing sounds of the baby could easily be heard, shrieking miserably in its rough, wooden cot while only a single blanket covered its tiny body, Susan sent a small prayer of thanks to Aslan as she slipped silently through the doorway and rushed to the child's side.

Scooping him delicately out of the cot and cradling him gently to her chest while rocking him slowly to calm his cries; tears slowly ran down Susan's cheeks, wishing that it was her own son she held so tenderly in her arms. Smiling tearfully down at the now silent baby, she brought a finger gently to his face and traced the lines around his mouth, noticing sorrowfully how similar it was to her own child's.

Looking away sharply to stop the flood of tears she could feel building, from flowing down her pale, tear streaked face, Susan tried to force herself to remember that her own baby was gone and that she was never going to get him back. No matter how much she wished she could.

As she glanced down at the tiny child in her arms and looked into the eyes blinking up at her sleepily however, she gasped and had to bring a hand to her mouth to stifle her shocked cry. The baby cradled to her chest had her eyes. The same eyes she had looked lovingly into for the first two months of his life before he was ripped away forever. The eyes of her son.


	8. Interlude 4: A Taste of England

**don't own...enjoy :)**

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Interlude 4: A Taste of England

_The nurse stared down at her in undisguised disgust as she lay curled up on the bed, sobbing in agony and mournfully caressing her stomach. Her body was on fire but she could barely feel the pain anymore; her mind was focussed solely on the knowledge that she was most likely going to lose her baby. The healers in Narnia had told her of the dangers of childbearing when it became known she was pregnant. Mrs beaver had coached her in all the obvious signs to look for that something was wrong, the dwarf women had taught her how to breathe and told her of their own customs during pregnancy. Susan knew everything there possibly was to be learned without having the actual experience of giving birth. And right now, she knew something was wrong._

_Professor Kirk had called for a doctor immediately once her screams of terror and pain had filled the large, old house. He had had the butler take the only car on the estate and speed to the nearest town when he was told there was no one available to come put at such short notice, and had paid much more than was needed in order to coax one of the nurses on call there to return to the house and attempt to help out the child in his care._

_Susan was aware there were other people in the room, but she couldn't bring herself to care until she felt the bed sink slightly at her side and Peter's familiar hand caressing her sweat soaked shoulder gently. Raising her tear stained face to look at him, she felt fresh tears wash swiftly down her cheeks as she realised he would never see his child, his heir. Neither of them would ever see the beautiful child their love had created after so many years of trying to conceive. Her voice was hoarse, and cracked as she whispered her apologies to him, her mind fogged with grief- half delirious with pain and the shock of their sudden return. As Peter's own calming, chocked whispers filtered in through her mind and a cool cloth slowly moved across her face and back, Susan drifted into pained unconsciousness; her fingers grasping Peter's and their entwined hands pressed to her slightly raised stomach._

_As Susan rested fitfully, Peter carefully smoothed the damp hair away from her face and pressed gentle kisses across her forehead. Slow, steady tears dripping from his eyes as he curled his body behind hers and sank down into the pillows; his hand resting over hers on her stomach as he too mourned the loss of the child he would never know. He paid little attention to the voices in his mind that had been whispering to him for the last couple of days; whispers of how wrong he was to be with Susan like he was. Whispers that called him filthy and sick, and murmured foreign but vaguely familiar words like "hell" and "incest" into his ears. Right now, all he wanted was to be right where he was; curled up beside his wife in the same position they had slept in for the last fourteen years and wishing the circumstances were different. He paid even less attention to the nurse standing in the doorway, quietly observing and curling her lip in disgust as he wished to be home in Narnia, where everything was right, and good- not the place that caused half forgotten memories of explosions and screaming and an absent father to rise up and haunt him. _

_Watching over Susan, his mind focussed solely on her, he was only vaguely aware of the professor entering the room and talking quietly with the nurse who had so far only done a cursory examination of Susan's body before declaring her irresponsible, pregnant and about to miscarry before retreating to the doorway to wait. His attention was only dragged fully towards the two at the sound of nurse's voice._

"_That'll be the father will it?" she asked with distain, her eyes fixed on the way Peter was holding Susan close to his chest- eyeing them both with such unconcealed distaste that he shifted uncomfortably on the bed and felt the guilt that had been slowly building the last few days once again fill his gut._

"_I honestly wouldn't know" was the mild mannered reply- a lie Peter thought, but kept quiet, forcing his attention to stay more on stroking Susan's back soothingly than the conversation. "He is her brother however, and she is very ill. I don't really think anything else matters right now, do you?_

_The door closed quietly as someone exited the room, Peter didn't bother looking up to check who, leaning forward instead to place a gentle, loving kiss against Susan's damp forehead, smoothing the damp strands of hair away as he did so and steadfastly ignoring the whispers filling his mind. She whimpered quietly in her fitful sleep and breathed out his name in a pained whisper. Pulling her in tighter to his chest, Peter murmured soothingly in her ear until she fell silent again- turning into his chest and burrowing her pain filled face in his neck as she did so; her hand curled around her stomach even in sleep, while the other clutched at the patched shirt covering his chest.__** This**__ was what mattered he thought, the feeling of rightness that came from holding his wife close to his chest, of having her in his arms; not the words that skipped through his mind like newly discovered secrets- building in strength and number as the hours away from their home stretched out- seemingly becoming longer and longer with every tick of the giant grandfather clock resting in the hallway._

_He glanced once more towards the doorway of the room, checking who was there before turning his face away and unrepentantly burying it in Susan's hair. The abject horror and disgust on the nurses face as she stood watching them from the doorway was the last thing he saw before his body succumbed to the much needed sleep. Her twisted face and revolted eyes haunted his dreams though while the knowledge that only the professors money kept her in the house curdled his stomach. For Peter, sleep was fitful; terror and guilt warring on his face even in sleep but his arms remaining locked around Susan's much changed body throughout the night as they both subconsciously prayed to Aslan to spare them their child._


End file.
